


wrap me in your arms (and never let go)

by TheFifthCharmedOne



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Castiel and Dean Winchester Need to Use Their Words, Dean Winchester Has Internalized Homophobia, Dean Winchester is Bad at Feelings, Episode: s15e18 Despair - Castiel's Confession Scene, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Smut, John Winchester's A+ Parenting, M/M, The Empty (Supernatural), Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-07
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-12 00:13:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29251260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheFifthCharmedOne/pseuds/TheFifthCharmedOne
Summary: It's summer, and Cas is human, so naturally he ditches the trenchcoat for short-sleeve shirts and tank tops. Ones that fit quite nicely...It's like he'stryingto drive Dean insane.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester, Eileen Leahy/Sam Winchester
Kudos: 1





	wrap me in your arms (and never let go)

Getting Cas back from the Empty had been remarkably easy. 

Almost _too_ easy, in Dean's opinion. 

He kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, for Cas to reveal another bullshit deal or something else terrible...but then he remembered that Chuck wasn't in charge anymore. That Jack - sweet, naive, nougat-loving Jack - was God now. That he was fixing everything that Chuck had ruined, and by Dean's reckoning, doing a damn good job of it.

Cas had helped out initially, working with Jack to repair Heaven since he'd done so much to dismantle it, but that only took a month or so. Granted, time passed differently Up There, so it could've been decades for them, but either way, Dean was _so_ relieved when Cas came back. Sam claimed he'd been in a pissy mood the entire time Cas was gone and when Dean had told his little brother to shut the hell up, the brat had just smirked and gone back to his laptop. Whatever.

Still, Dean hadn't had the courage to talk to Cas about what had happened the night he...Dean swallowed hard at the memory of the black ooze enveloping Cas...the night that Cas had confessed his feelings. The night that he ( _come on, be a man, Winchester_ ) died.

There's a hand on his shoulder right where Cas's handprint used to be, and it shocks him so thoroughly he drops the coffee pot he'd been cleaning. Thankfully it just makes a loud clatter and splashes warm soapy water across his stomach, but it _feels_ worse somehow.

"Dean? Are you all right?" Cas's voice is gravelly and it does things to Dean's insides, things it never used to do but things are different now, aren't they? "Dean!" He blinked and turned to Cas, who's eyes were round with concern, and holy shit, had they always been so _blue_? Sam cleared his throat behind them, and Dean cursed under his breath. They both turn and find Dean's sasquatch of a brother holding a duffel bag.

"Goin' somewhere Sammy?" Dean asked.

"Eileen found a hunt and asked me to back her up. I should be back in a week or so."

"Does she know what you'll be hunting?" Cas asked curiously.

"She suspects a wendigo, and it's in northern Michigan, so the location matches up."

"We haven't seen a wendigo since Blackwater Ridge," Dean commented. He frowned; he wasn't ready to go with Sam despite how every instinct screamed for him to do so. _He'll be with Eileen. He'll be fine._ "Be careful."

"Always am." Sam replied with a slight bitchface, and Dean rolled his eyes.

"Bitch."

"Jerk." Sam returned fondly, and Dean smiled. When Sam continued to stand there awkwardly, Dean made a go motion with his hand, aiming it in the direction of the garage.

"Go on, you're wasting daylight." Sam flipped him off and departed without another word. Baby's engine roared to life a few moments later, and silence fell once Sam peeled out of the bunker toward the interstate. Dean returned to the dishes, trying in vain to ignore the warmth that Cas exuded. It occurred to him that, for the first time in a long time, he and Cas were _alone_ in the bunker.

"Sam seemed excited to spend time with Eileen." Cas said idly, but then he frowned. "Even though they're hunting a creature that feasts on human flesh."

"Are you kiddin'? Hunting is practically foreplay for Sam." Dean realized the mistake of his words the minute he said them, but he couldn't bring himself to take them back either. He pulled the drain plug out and watched the suds swirl around, clenching his fingers around the rim of the sink. Why did he have to make things so fucking awkward? He cleared his throat. "Uh...anyway." He turned and found Cas standing too close yet again, his blue eyes trained on Dean's green ones. Dean inhaled to tell Cas that he needed his personal space, but he couldn't bring himself to actually say the words.

"Dean." Cas's voice had a serious edge to it, the kind that meant capital-t Trouble. "I have been meaning to speak with you privately."

"Well, now's good a time as any," Dean replied glibly. "What's on your mind?"

__

"You." Cas answered in his patented honest way. Dean's chest squeezed and he moved away from the sink, headed towards the refrigerator for a beer. Out of habit, he grabbed one for Cas even though the former angel didn't drink very often. He cracked the bottle open and sat at the map table. Cas followed and sat diagonally from him, staring at his knees for a few moments before speaking. "The night that the Empty took me, I...I had no intention of coming back."

__

"Yeah, that's usually what happens when you die. Vengeful spirits and other miscellaneous resurrections aside." quipped Dean. Cas just gave him a long-suffering 'why do I put up with your crap' look, and Dean smiled slightly to himself, only a little bitterness creeping into the upward curve of his mouth. "Anyway, what about it?"

__

"I never intended to tell you the depth of my feelings. I was content to remain friends, to accept brotherly love as the only thing you could offer me, given your sexual orientation and my male vessel - but I couldn't die without saying it at least once."

__

"Is there a point here, Cas? Cuz I'm starting to feel like an underpaid, overworked therapist." Dean told him, not unkindly, but with his typical smartassery. He leaned forward, bracing himself to speak candidly. "I'll never be able to thank you for everything you've done for me, for us, hell, for the whole damn world. You've sacrificed your life over and over for a world that doesn't even know you exist." He thought of priests, churches, and even the nebulous idea Sam had had about angels before he met them, and he amended, "Not literally, anyway."

"And I would do it again." Cas nodded, his eyes lingering on Dean's even when the latter broke the stare. "Though, you're mistaken in believing that I did it all for the world. I did it for you. To save you. To protect you."

And, wow. Dean wasn't ready for those words to slam into him like a freight train with broken brakes, but there they were. No one, not his dad, not Sam; _no one_ had gone as far for him as Cas had. Which is (probably) why he says those three words, the ones that have always been so damn hard for him to get out. He'd always shown others that he cared with grand gestures; but he rarely (if ever) told them what he was feeling. 

"I love you."

Cas, for his part, doesn't even seem surprised.

**Author's Note:**

> I blame TikTok.


End file.
